6 - Occasions

Remember? User's Guide

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Occasions describe events in your life and are the heart of this package. They specify when the event occurs and how it should appear in event lists. You enter, view or change the definition of an occasion via the Occasion window described in detail below.

Entering a New Occasion

The simplest way to begin creating an occasion is to select menu: Occasion \ New to open a new, blank Occasion window. Fill in the description, set the date fields to describe when it occurs, optionally set other attributes such as the Type and starting time, then select menu: File \ Save Occasion or press the enter key to save it in an occasion file. Use menu: File \ Close Window to close the window. To create another new occasion without opening a new Occasion window just change the fields that are different then select menu: File \ Save as New Occasion to save the changes as a new occasion instead of replacing the one previously saved.

Double click on a calendar day number or on a date title in the event list to open a new Occasion window preset for that date.

Select menu: Occasion \ New 'To Do' to open an Occasion window with today's date pre-entered and with the Persistent checkbox turned on. Enter a description then save and the item will appear every day under today's date until you delete it or mark it as completed. This is a very basic "to do" style item.

The new occasion's File and Type fields are pre-filled based on choices in the Occasion Files and Occasion Types dialog windows. You are free to change any or all of the window's fields. The preset values are for convenience and not mandatory.

Changing an Existing Occasion

To open an Occasion window for an existing occasion, click on its description in an event list or Browse window (see: Occasion Files \ Browse Windows) to select it, then choose menu: Occasion \ Edit. A separate window is opened for each selected occasion. You can also simply double click on a description.

Searching

Select menu: Occasion \ Find to search active occasion files by description and/or date:


The Find Occasion Dialog

1. What

Enter the text that must be found somewhere in the occasion's description. Leave this field blank to search only the date fields.

2. When

Enter the specific date fields values to find (the When section of its Occasion window.) You can also specify an Occasion Type name or "persistent" to find occasions with a checkmark in their Persistent box. Leave this box blank to search only the descriptions.

Click Find or press the return key to search for the first matching occasion. Select menu: Occasion \ Find Next to find the next match. Each matched occasion will open in its own Occasion window.

You can abbreviate the names of weekdays, months and types but be sure to provide enough to uniquely specify them.

The Occasion Window


Sample Occasion Window

1. Occasion File

Use this menu to select the occasion file where this occasion should be saved. It is preset to the last file you accessed or you can specify a default file (see: Occasion Files). For existing occasions, selecting a new file creates a new occasion when you save your changes but does not alter the original. You can't add an occasion to a locked file.

2. Occasion Type

Select the category for this occasion (see: Occasion Types). Hold down the option key to view the selected Type's definition.

3. What

(Required) Enter a 1 to 255 character description for the occasion. Press return to start a new line. Press tab to highlight the current description so the next key pressed will replace it. Also accepts the standard Edit menu commands.

4. When

These five pop-up menus determine the dates for this occasion. Empty fields, specified by selecting the "any" item at the top of each menu, are ignored when determining which dates match (see: Date Patterns below.)

5. Duration

How long the event lasts, from 1 to 255 days, starting from each date matched by the When date pattern.

6. Start/Alert Times

Choose a starting time for the occasion by clicking on the pop-up Start time menu. Click on the left side to set the hour or the right to set the minute. The start time is shown with the description in event lists. Press command left/right arrow keys to adjust the start time in small increments (pref: Occasion Window \ time increment.)

You can optionally specify an Alert time if you want to be notified shortly before the occasion starts. It is relative to the start time and may be up to 24 hours before. An alert time later than the Start time is underlined and is interpreted as being on the day before (see: Pop-up Alerts). You can choose to automatically enter an Alert time when a Start time is entered (pref: Occasion Window \ Automatic).

NOTE: The starting and alert times are applied to each day of a multi-day event, those with a duration of two or more days, not just the first.

7. Message Box

Usually displays the next date for this occasion or the previous date if it is persisting and not yet Marked Completed. A problem description appears here if there is something wrong with the occasion definition.

8. Persistent

Turn on this checkbox to have the occasion function as an automatic "to do", continuing to appear until you Mark it as Completed.

 

The window's title describes the status of the occasion:

Relevant Menu Items

File \ Revert to Saved
Discard changes to an existing occasion.

Edit \ Cut, Copy, Paste, Clear, Select All
The standard edit commands operate on the description text.

Occasion \ Delete
Delete the occasion and close the window.

Occasion \ Mark Completed
Skip over the next occurrence of this occasion, treating it as having already occurred.

Occasion \ Forget Completed
Restore future dates previously marked completed.

Date Patterns

The date or dates for an occasion are determined by the date pattern you select in the When section of an Occasion window. To understand how this works, let's first talk about calendar dates in general.

If I ask "What is today's date?" you will probably answer with something like "today is Thursday, March 27, 1997." You just gave four pieces of information to uniquely identify the date: the day of week, month, day of month and year. Remember? uses the same four attributes to decide the dates for an occasion.

There is another less common but very useful piece of information about a date: the number of times the day of the week has occurred in the month. It is used by some U.S. holidays such as Mother's Day (the 2nd Sunday in May) or the end of Daylight Savings time (the Last Sunday in October.) It is also commonly used for monthly meetings. For want of a better term, this part of a date is called "Which" (as in "which weekday of the month") in the Occasion window.

One last attribute for a date is its ISO "week number". Week numbers range from 1 to 52 or 53 for any given year. Week 1 is the first with at least four days in the year. Week numbers are generally a new concept to U.S. users.

Matching Dates to the (When) Date Pattern

An occasion matches a given date if and only if the nonblank parts of its date pattern are the same as those of the date. Blank fields are ignored and you can mentally substitute "any" for them if it helps you to understand the matching process.

One-time Occasions

If the date pattern is a year, month and a day of month, the occasion occurs exactly once on that date.

Occasions that Repeat Annually, Monthly, Weekly or Daily

Feel free to use other more obscure combinations of fields as well. Some examples: "month: June, year: 1996" matches the entire month of June for the year 1996; "weekday: Friday, day: 13" matches every Friday that is also the 13th of the month; or even simply "which: First" for the first week of each month.

Occasions that Repeat Every 'N' Days

Use this special form to handle events that repeat after a specific number of days, such as every other week (every 14 days.)

  1. Pick a starting date
    We need a starting point that we know belongs to the pattern of repeating dates. The exact date doesn't matter except no dates before it can appear in your schedule. Enter it into the Month, Year and Day fields.
  2. Select the "Repeat" occasion format
    In the "Which" menu select "Repeat", "Weekday" changes to "Interval".
  3. Select the repeat interval
    In the "Interval" menu, select the number of days from 1 to 255 between occurrences of this event.

Multi-Day Occasions

Multi-day events allow you to easily specify events such as conferences that span several days without entering a separate occasion for each day. Set the When field for the starting date or dates and change the Duration to suit. This even works for repeating events so you can specify an occasion that matches every work day, Monday through Friday, of every week by setting the When fields to Weekday: Monday and the Duration to 5 or an event that matches every weekend by selecting Weekday: Saturday and Duration: 2.

Mouse-less (Keyboard) Occasion Entry

Entering an occasion while talking on the phone can be difficult with the mouse. Instead, type the entire definition into the Occasion window's What box, then select menu: Edit \ Convert What to When to pick out the date fields and occasion type and set them appropriately. Anything that isn't a date field goes back into the description box. Use quotes to enclose the description or for multiword occasion type names. Abbreviations are permitted, just be sure to enter enough to be unambiguous. Case is ignored.

You may enter:

The first time found is assumed to be the Start time and the second the Alert time.

Here are a few examples:

You can enter an entire list of occasions by typing them up in this format, one per line, copying the text to the Clipboard, then Pasting it into a Browse window (see also: Occasion Files \ Importing).

Here is a fast way to enter a new occasion when Remember? is not open. (see: Pop-Up Alerts for a description of the "hot key").

  1. Press your alert hot key (let's say it is command-option-something), the pop-up alert window appears.
  2. Press command-option-N to launch Remember? to create a new occasion. (Replace command-option with the same "modifier" keys [command, shift, option, control] you selected for the hot key.)
  3. Type the complete definition into the What box, then press command = (equal sign) to convert it to an occasion.
  4. Press command-W to close the window.

That's it! Remember? will automatically quit when you close the Occasion window unless you have requested via Preferences that it remain open when there are no windows.

Copyright ©1988-99 by Dave Warker, all rights reserved worldwide.

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